


all i've ever known is how to hold my own.

by winterwinterwinter



Category: Fargo (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Western, M/M, Romance, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:40:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26141257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterwinterwinter/pseuds/winterwinterwinter
Summary: wesley, a wandering outlaw, asks grady to marry him.
Relationships: Mr. Numbers/Mr. Wrench (Fargo)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 25





	all i've ever known is how to hold my own.

**1.**

the first time wes proposed to grady was the first time he saw him, just about.

luverne was the first town he and biscuit had seen in a while. his last job had gone well, and he hadn’t heard from moses since, and when wes didn’t have to work, it was just blues skies and yellow dirt and green grass for himself and biscuit. there was nothing quite like the two of them on the open plains, sleeping under the stars and bathing in creeks. and usually, by the time wes was feeling hungry, and lonely, and like he might not mind a nice bed to lay down in, there was some little town on the horizon, perhaps given to him by god. and this time, luverne was it.

the sun told him it was noon, and as he rode into town the people didn’t pay him much mind, and that told him that they were probably used to transients like himself riding in on their horses.

it wasn’t hard to find a saloon after turning biscuit in at the livery stable. the town wasn’t very big at all, which wes had been able to tell just from seeing it on the horizon. it wasn’t like the last place he’d stayed, which had been near a railroad station and bustled with energy from sun up to sun down.

the saloon doors swung open violently just as wes strode up to the building, and a man tumbled out and fell in the dirt of the street. wes looked up and saw another man standing on the porch. from the way he stood, the way he held himself, wes could tell he was the proprietor of the saloon. he turned his glare on wes, then, standing before the man in the dirt, and wes knew he was done for.

glaring at him was the loveliest set of brown eyes wes had ever seen. wes felt trapped, suddenly, like a rabbit in a snare. all wes could do was tug his bandana down around his neck and take his hat off in a show of respect, a gesture of neutrality. the proprietor cocked his head and, oh, what pretty hair he had, and blinked and turned to one of several men lurking in the saloon door, watching. wes watched as they exchanged words.

the proprietor cast one last glance at wes, and then he snarled at the man in the dirt, saying something that wes couldn’t make out. he walked back through the doors of his saloon, and for a moment wes stood there still, gazing where he had been.

wes walked through the saloon doors. a few patrons glanced up at him as he walked across the threshold, but most kept their eyes to their tables. wes saw the handsome proprietor behind the bar, serving a drink to an old fellow with a long beard. the proprietor glanced up and met his eyes, and goddamn, how he took wes’s breath away…

wes sat at the far end of the bar. he hooked a heel on the brass rail at his feet and rummaged in his coat pocket for his notebook and pencil. he flipped through the pages. it wasn’t hard to find a blank one, and he wrote, finishing just as the handsome proprietor was making his way over.

he watched the proprietor begin to speak, but wes held up a hand to stop him. he showed him the notebook, where he’d written _will you marry me?_

the proprietor froze. his mouth moved, something that looked like “pardon me” but, of course, wes couldn’t be sure. wes waved a hand, gesturing to his ear and shaking his head. the proprietor seemed to understand right away, snapping his mouth shut and gesturing for the notebook and pencil.

 _is this a joke?_ was written on the page beneath wes’s proposal.

 _not in the slightest,_ wes wrote back.

the proprietor paused. he looked at wes, really looked at him. wes watched as he looked, as he drank him in sitting there at the bar. the proprietor bit his lip and scribbled in the notebook. _no,_ it said.

he trotted off to another patron then.

he came back, eventually. he spoke, saying “are you gonna order a drink or just take up space at my bar all day?”

wes grinned and passed him the notebook. _thought it would be hard to ask for your hand without knowing your name,_ he’d written, _may i have it?_

the proprietor looked as if he was torn between something like annoyance and something like intrigue. he stared at wes again, conflict swimming in his eyes. wes didn’t know what was happening in his head, but he took the notebook and wes watched him scribble: G-R-A-D-Y. _grady._

 _wes,_ wes said with his hands. he showed off his sign name, and then he spelled it out for him - W-E-S. the annoyance melted away, and wes just saw intrigue in grady’s eyes. he spelled it again, a little slower. W-E-S.

grady tried to imitate him. he had the W, but then he hesitated with the E, and his hand fell to the bar before he could even attempt an S.

 _not bad,_ wes said. grady looked lost. wes decided to put him out of his misery - he pointed behind the bar, at a tall bottle full of coffin varnish. grady followed his finger, and he went off to fetch it for him.

the rejection didn’t sting at all, especially as the hours crawled past and grady kept coming back to him, filling his glass and offering him dinner, trading his notebook back and forth and back and forth. wes made him laugh at one point, and the perfection of his teeth, and the way his eyes crinkled -

yes, this town was given to wes by god, and he’d dropped his prettiest angel right in the middle of it for him.

  
  


**2.**

wes got a room at the inn down the way from grady’s saloon. he didn’t think he’d be leaving town any time soon.

**3.**

the second time wes proposed to grady was a few nights later, a few drinks in.

wes sat at the bar, as he had most nights since he rode into town, admiring grady as he worked. he was pouring drinks and smiling at patrons and making conversation, chuckling here and there. he turned to wes, cozy in his seat at the far end of the bar, leaning on one elbow, and his easy smile faltered. “stop staring, cowboy,” he said, his cheeks all red like he was drinking on the job.

 _marry me?_ wes said, almost reflexively.

grady, of course, didn’t know what he was saying. wes was sure he was catching on, though. but he just passed wes another glass of whiskey and left to go tend to another patron.

  
  


**4.**

they were sitting at a table together in the morning, a few hours before grady would open the saloon for the day. wes had made some breakfast for the two of them - _i don’t get to cook on a stove often,_ he said when grady tried to protest.

 _haven’t had someone cook me something in a while, not since mother died,_ grady wrote in wes’s notebook. they were spending a lot of time together, wes offering his help around the saloon, grady stubbornly refusing it.

 _good?_ wes said.

grady gestured at the plate as if to say _it’s eggs._ wes smiled around his food.

 _i like sweets,_ grady wrote.

wes was absolutely tickled. he set down his fork and brushed his index and middle finger against his chin twice. grady imitated him. _S-W-E-E-T-S,_ he spelled. _C-A-N-D-Y._

 _thank you,_ grady said, one of the few signs he was confident with.

 _maybe i’ll bring you some candy,_ wes said.

grady was good at following along wes’s sentences, he just wasn’t very confident in forming his own yet. _where are you going,_ he wrote.

 _next time i have a job,_ wes said, _i’ll bring you some candy._

grady took the notebook and tugged it off the table and onto his lap. he started to write - wes could tell from the way his arm was moving. wes waited, at first, but then grady didn’t stop. so wes went back to his eggs, half-finished on the plate.

wes was done by the time grady replaced the notebook on the table and slid it over to wes. wes looked an saw a paragraph on the page, written in grady’s neat penmanship: _i went east for my health a few years ago, and when i was there i had candy that i have not had since. it wasn’t quite like gum, but it was similar. i brought some home with me, but i ate them fast after i made it home. i gave my mother some before she died._

wes looked up at grady, whose expression was unreadable.

 _better now?_ wes said.

grady nodded. _better,_ he repeated with his hands. _better than better._

  
  


**5.**

the third time wes proposed to grady was when they rode out to the hills and wes traced the constellations for him with his fingers.

it took a bit of needling to get grady to say yes to climbing on biscuit’s back and letting wes take him out beyond town, but he did. he closed the saloon around ten, and wes went down to the livery stable, and he came to the saloon on biscuit’s back, clad in his coat, grady standing on the porch, waiting.

for a moment, wes wondered if grady would need help climbing on, but he hoisted himself up almost effortlessly and wes’s heart fluttered. wes dug his heels into biscuit’s sides and she started off, trotting through the dirt streets of town. she picked up speed as they made it past the swinging sign to the north that said luverne. it swung in the wind as they passed under.

wes felt grady’s hands on his middle as they rode. his heart fluttered again at the feeling of his hands on him. if he wasn’t holding the reins, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep himself from putting his hand on grady’s.

eventually they came to the top of a small hill and wes had biscuit stop. he climbed off her back and offered grady his hand, but grady turned his nose up at him and dismounted on his own. his feet on the ground, he looked at wes and grinned. wes grinned back.

they had brought a lantern with them, but the moon shone bright in the sky above them and lighted the ground on which they stood. wes set the unlit lantern on the ground.

 _indian fellow taught me these,_ wes said. he spoke, of course, of moses tripoli. _he taught me how to hunt, how to shoot. taught me all those gruesome things. but he also taught me this._

grady, still rough with hand-speaking, just nodded.

wes stood behind grady and held his elbow. they gazed up at the sky together and wes used grady’s finger to trace constellations out - he drew hercules, draco, ursa minor and major, cassiopeia. grady turned and looked up at wes with such enchantment in his eyes.

 _what are they?_ grady said.

 _here,_ wes said.

they stood side by side and wes traced them out again, this time spelling their names out after he finished. H-E-R-C-U-L-E-S, he spelled, D-R-A-C-O…

they sat together in the dirt, grady’s eyes almost glued to the sky, wes’s fixed on grady.

 _he was an indian,_ wes said, _but he was well-read. they call the stars different things, but he learned them out of a book. the names were all greek. except some he knew._

he traced orion again, and grady watched.

 _greeks call that one O-R-I-O-N,_ wes said, _a hunter. but he said that the first star was a chief, and the three behind him were bison._

 _there’s a whole world up there,_ grady said.

when grady looked up at the sky, wes could see the moon mirrored in his eyes. the beauty of grady in the moonlight was indescribable. he looked otherworldly, the way that the moon lit his skin up.

 _marry me?_ wes said.

grady smiled. he knew what wes was asking by then. he chuckled and shook his head, and then went back to gazing up at the field of stars above their heads.

  
  


**6.**

the fourth time wes proposed to grady was after they kissed for the first time.

the last patron - the old drunk, ennis stussy, always the last one out - had just stumbled out the door. the pianist had packed his sheet music up. grady was wiping down the tables and wes was setting the chairs on top. it was late, maybe eleven.

grady was tired. wes could tell from how slowly he worked the tables, could tell from how he paused after each one just to stand there for a moment.

wes stood against the bar as grady wiped down the last table. grady turned to him, rubbing his forehead with the back of the hand he held his rag in. he tossed it, then, narrowly missing the bucket on the floor between them.

 _you’re a real help,_ grady said in a rare moment of sincerity. his hands were still pretty slow. he paused between words like he really had to think about them, which he probably did. but the effort just made the fondness in wes’s heart grow fonder, made him want to toss grady onto biscuit’s back and steal him away for good. _a god sent. H-O-N-E-S-T-L-Y._

 _anything for you,_ wes said, and he meant it.

grady smirked at him. _you’re R-I-D-I-C-U-L-O-U-S,_ he said, his spelling fairly fast compared to his words.

wes shrugged and tipped his hat. he almost turned to leave, to go back to the inn and lay in his borrowed bed and fall asleep thinking of grady as he did every night. he almost turned to leave, but grady was closing the gap between them, stepping around the bucket and standing before wes, closer than he’d ever been before. they were nearly nose-to-nose.

grady shook his head. “don’t go yet,” he said.

wes suddenly found it a little difficult to breathe. he nodded.

this close, wes could really see how tired grady was. there was a heavy shadow beneath his pretty eyes. he wondered if grady could feel just how fast his heart was beating, and then he realized it wasn’t his heart at all. he was feeling grady’s heart, beating fast as a jackrabbit. somehow, they were chest-to-chest.

wes looked at grady’s eyes. grady opened his mouth and wes drew his eyes down. “i like you,” grady said, his breath hot against wes’s face. “i’m afraid i like you a lot.”

wes grabbed him around the middle, and they kissed in the middle of grady’s saloon. wes thought that if he happened to die right then, if some outlaw nastier than himself shot him through the window, he might not mind it so much.

grady’s mouth was soft, and his mustache was soft, and his middle was soft - everywhere, he was soft. wes barely resisted the desire to run his hand through grady’s hair to see if it was just as soft. he wasn’t sure he could let him go in the first place, anyway - he fit so perfectly in wes’s arms, like he was meant to be there, like that was his proper place.

grady laughed afterward, his pretty eyes sparkling. wes bumped their foreheads together.

 _haven’t…_ he started, but he hesitated, his hands held in front of him. he looked up at wes, a little sheepish, and spelled K-I-S-S and raised his eyebrows.

wes tapped his cheek twice, once below his mouth, and once beneath his eye.

 _haven’t kissed anyone in a long time,_ he said.

 _you weren’t lacking,_ wes said, because he wasn’t. wes was certain he’d never had a kiss as good as the one grady gave him.

grady laughed again, and he seemed so shy suddenly, his face all pink in the low light, gazing up at wes from beneath his lashes. for a moment, wes really thought he’d been shot, because he felt as if he’d been struck. of course, it was only cupid’s arrow once again, driving the piercing arrowhead deeper in him. 

_marry me?_ he said.

grady laughed, and his eyes crinkled, and wes thought that, maybe, god was real, and angels were real, and grady was maybe one of them. he had to be one of them. a more perfect man had never lived before.

 _i said i like you,_ grady said after stepping back.

 _some folk just order their brides out of the newspaper,_ wes said.

 _not a bride,_ grady said. _not like some folk, either._

  
  


**7.**

eventually, grady invited wes up to his home above the saloon.

 _i lived here with my mother,_ grady said after they’d mounted the stairs together. _all my life._

it was small, which wes figured was fine for just him. there was a little sitting room with furniture that might have been fashionable twenty years ago, and a little bedroom with a cozy-looking bed. there was a violin propped up in the corner of the sitting room, and wes had to ask _is that yours?_

grady looked shy - _my mother’s,_ he said. _she used to play. she was amazing. sad to say i wasn’t blessed with her talent._

_but you play?_

grady nodded. _i try,_ he said.

 _will you play for me?_ wes said.

grady grimaced. _you can’t hear it,_ _cowboy,_ he said.

 _doesn’t mean i can’t enjoy it,_ wes said. he took a seat on an upholstered chair before the violin, and he sat back, trying to make himself real cozy.

grady looked lost for a moment. he looked from wes to the violin on the floor sitting in its stand, casting a glance at his own hands after a moment. he sighed and mumbled something, and before wes knew it grady was taking the violin and the bow in his hands, and he was tucking it beneath his chin, and he was playing.

grady kept his eyes closed while he played, and wes felt free to gaze upon him, to drink plentifully from the well. he swayed, and he moved the bow so fluidly. he was only playing for a minute or so when he stopped abruptly, flinching as though he’d been struck. he opened his eyes and looked at wes.

 _what’s wrong?_ wes said.

 _sorry,_ grady said. _i can’t. it sounds terrible._

wes laughed. _that’s fine,_ he said. _i got what i wanted._

grady set the violin in its stand. he lingered there in the corner, touching the lacquered wood and the strings. he stood at his full height and turned away from it.

 _let me show you something,_ grady said. _stay there._

without another word, he turned and disappeared into the little bedroom, leaving wes alone in the sitting room for a moment.

it was then that wes noticed how sparse the decoration was in grady’s home. there were no trinkets, nothing on the walls. the furniture was simple - not too garish or plain. in fact, the only splash of personality was the violin tucked away in the corner. didn’t grady say he’d lived there his whole life?

grady returned, carrying with him a frame that he held against his chest. he stood before wes with it, looking vaguely nervous. wes watched him take a breath, and then he passed the frame down into wes’s hands.

in the frame was a portrait of two ladies, both with thick dark hair and the same eyes that were set in grady’s face. the older woman wore a little smirk, and the girl beside her looked a little annoyed.

wes looked up at grady.

 _my mother,_ he said. _M-A-R-G-A-R-E-T._

that, wes knew. she looked so much like grady - the eyes, the hair, the brows, the cheeks.

 _and me,_ grady said.

and so wes had the answer to the questions he didn’t realize he wanted to ask - why grady had to go east for his health, why a scant few of the townsfolk glared at him as he walked past. he traced the face of the young lady in the photograph.

 _did you love her, your mother?_ he said eventually.

grady seemed to let out a deep breath. _more than anything,_ he said.

  
  


**8.**

the sixth time wes proposed to grady was after he watched grady rip the gun off his wall and point it at two youngsters.

the whole time, wes had thought it was just a decoration. but one night while he was sitting at the far end of the bar, two rambunctious young men - they couldn’t be older than sixteen - were accosting grady over something. wes watched grady rub a single glass clean over and over again as they badgered him. some of the other patrons were eyeing the young men, a wary look in their eyes. wes saw grady’s eyebrow jumping, twitching under his bangs. he saw him tense more and more as the moments passed, his shoulders tightening.

finally, one of the boys spat beer on the floor and flung his glass and shouted, and that was enough apparently. the glass shattered against the floor, some patrons flinching away from the spray of glass.

before wes could even touch his gun in its holster on his hip, grady dropped the glass he’d been cleaning and whirled in place, grabbing the shotgun off the wall and cocking it, aiming for the head of the boy who’d flung the glass. the two boys stood motionless, their twisted expressions of joy having fallen. it seemed all of their bravado has dissipated the moment grady’s hand closed around the handle.

grady’s face was so full of pure rage - his eyes were so fiery, his mouth screwed up in a snarl. wes flushed as he felt for his gun, just in case.

grady yelled at the boys and jerked the shotgun in his hand and they started, gathering themselves and running for the door.

the saloon sat stock-still for a moment, every patron still in their seat. even the pianist had long since stopped playing, having swivelled in his seat to watch grady. grady huffed and set the gun on the bar, smoothing his shirt and wiping his forehead. wes watched the saloon come back to life, fellows returning to their conversations.

grady hung the shotgun on the wall once more, and as he turned to grab the brook to sweep up the glass, he caught wes’s eye.

wes tried to give him a grin. _marry me?_ he said, trying to apply some levity.

grady looked away.

  
  


**9.**

_they like to call me the bearded lady,_ grady said.

they sat around grady’s little table in his home above the saloon, a lamp between them illuminating the hurt on grady’s face.

 _don’t get mad on my behalf,_ grady said. _i can handle them. they’re just kids._

 _you can tell me not to, but i will,_ wes said. _that’s not right. you’re no lady._

 _doesn’t matter to them,_ grady said. he stood up and walked around the table, coming to a stop between wes’s knees. _calm yourself,_ he said before taking wes’s face in his hands. wes let him, easily succumbing to his soft touch. they stared at each other, the light from the lamp illuminating grady’s eyes.

grady rubbed the skin under wes’s eyes with his thumbs, nice and slow, and wes found himself almost calm.

 _it got better after i came back from the east,_ grady said. _after everything. less bastards saying things bastards say._

wes stared up at grady standing between his legs. the lamplight was soft, yellow like twilight - it smoothed grady’s edges. their eyes met, and _god_ almighty, his eyes. wes could find paradise in those eyes.

 _i’m in love with you,_ wes said.

grady smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. _go get some sleep, outlaw,_ he said.

  
  


**10.**

wes knew grady could handle himself - if he had any doubts, they were certainly dashed after what happened in the saloon with the kids. but still, wes couldn’t help his wrath when he saw the two young boys on his way back from the post office.

he cornered them. even without spoken words, it was easy for wes to threaten someone. he was tall enough, but he made himself taller, and he flashed his gun. by the time he was done, the boys looked like they were about to wet themselves.

wes didn’t tell grady.

  
  


**11.**

moses tripoli had a job for wes.

 _what does that mean, you having a job?_ grady said.

wes shrugged. _he gives me a location,_ wes said, _and a name. and i go. i do what he asks. i collect my pay, sometimes. then biscuit and i return to the road._

grady’s expression changed. he looked - pensive? but also neutral. but also - ?

 _this time,_ wes said, _i’ll come back here._

 _you will,_ grady said.

_i will._

  
  
  


**12.**

the seventh time wes proposed to grady was after he came back.

tripoli sent him to a lonely, dusty, ramshackle farm two days’ journey from luverne where an old man with waxy skin sat waiting for him on the porch, perched in a rocking chair. he drew first, but wes was faster, and a shot to the thigh had the old man surrendering the money fast enough.

wes took him to the nearest town, only a few miles off, and left him in the care of some young thing with tweezers and thread and scissors. in wes’s line of work, there were men that needed to die. but this miserable old fellow wasn’t one of them. not this time.

the letter that had been delivered to the post office down the way from grady’s saloon said that the australian would be waiting in redrock to take the money, and that was another day’s ride. wes rode through the night, hungry and tired but single-minded, and when he made it to town it was barely two hours after sunrise and the australian was waiting in a poncho beneath a solitary copse of trees near the town’s cemetery. he grinned, half-toothless, when he saw wes, and he took the money and gave wes his pay.

“should try the tavern, mate,” the australian said. he winked at wes. “some fine flowers out in this desert, you know?”

wes scoffed at him, and against his desires to throw a leg over biscuit’s back and guide them down the road back home, back to grady, he went to the inn for a good meal and some rest before he took biscuit’s reins in hand again and started them back to luverne.

  
  


by the time wes was walking down the rode from the livery stable to grady’s saloon, he’d been gone for nearly six days. it was night when they made it back, stars shining above him and his horse against the blackness of the night. the town was empty and dark, but a little candle was burning in the window of the saloon, solitary and mysterious, and the swinging doors were exposed, the second set of doors still tucked away above.

wes stepped through the doors just in time to watch grady padding down the stairs in his nightshirt and not much else, a second candle in a brass holder in his hand.

they stared at each other in the low light for a moment. grady set the candle on the bar and said _beard._

 _couldn’t shave,_ wes said. _looks bad, doesn’t it?_

grady grinned. _is that a joke?_ he said. _got me thinking S-I-N-F-U-L things._

wes chuckled. he took his hat off and set it on the bar. grady came closer and his smile faded.

 _lonely here without you around,_ grady said.

 _are you saying you missed me after all?_ wes said.

 _yes,_ grady said, looking grim and serious as a man on the gallows.

there was so much wes wanted to say - _i’m sorry i dragged my feet on the way back, biscuit needed to rest, i missed you too, you should’ve come with._ instead of those things, he sank to one knee on the floor of the saloon he’d been haunting for months and said _will you marry me?_

grady stared down at him, the candle flame flickering against his skin, soft shadows dancing at his edges. he sank to his knees on the floor of his own saloon, his birthright, and he grabbed wes’s shoulders and drew him into a kiss.

wes wasted no time in grasping the small of his back and wrapping an arm around his shoulders, and it was a miracle that as they struggled to their feet and to the stairs that they didn’t knock the candle off the bar and set the whole place up in flames.

  
  


**13.**

wes woke up in grady’s bed, between his sheets and beneath his blankets. the sun, still waking, shone softly through the curtains. grady was still asleep beside him, his face limp and careless as he slept, his lips moving just so on every breath.

wes couldn’t resist shifting closer and weaseling an arm beneath grady, tugging him close. he barely stirred, his eyes still closed, his breathing still heavy. all he did was curl toward wes, pressed all up against him and his warmth.

wes laid there for god knows how long, stroking grady’s naked back and sniffing his messy hair. eventually, grady began to wake, first blinking sleep out of his eyes and then yawning in wes’s face. he gazed up at wes, and slowly a sleepy smile unfurled across his face.

they kissed.

 _i brought you candy,_ wes said once they parted.

grady, his eyes all big and soft and sentimental, like he didn’t expect wes to remember such a thing, kissed him again.

  
  


**14.**

later that day, wes walked down to the inn and told old grandma turner that he didn’t need his room anymore. he collected his things and walked back to grady’s saloon. he walked in and watched grady serving his patrons. their eyes met. grady smiled.

  
  


**15.**

the eighth time wes proposed to grady was after they’d dragged themselves back up onto the bank of the river and they laid almost-naked beside each other, basking in the fading summer sun, biscuit grazing nearby.

in their shirts and underthings they laid next to each other, flat on their backs, watching the sky. the water had turned grady’s shirt heavy and translucent, and wes could look over at him and see everything: the long, crescent-shaped scars beneath his nipples and his chest hair sticking to his skin.

grady looked at him. _something wrong?_ he said.

wes shook his head and continued to gaze upon him, absolutely, unabashedly spellbound.

grady grinned at him, and once again wes fell in love with his teeth and his smile and his mouth and his crinkling eyes. _not gonna ask me to marry you again, are you?_ he said

 _will you say yes?_ wes said.

for a moment grady smiled at him so beautifully, close-lipped and his neck bared, that wes believed he really might say yes this time. _no,_ grady said.

 _why do you keep breaking my heart?_ wes said.

grady shrugged against the earth. _you keep asking at the wrong time,_ he said. he looked back up at the sky, quickly turning purple behind the setting sun.

wes stared over at him for a few moments more. _you keep asking at the wrong time,_ he repeated in his mind. that meant that there would be a time that he asked and grady would say yes, and they would kiss and kiss and someday be married whether god sanctioned it or not. he watched grady’s eyelids slip over his eyes and, assured in his affections, he reached over and touched his beautiful, dewy white neck. he traced his fingers from his collarbone to his jaw and grady arched against his touch.

wes propped himself up with his elbow and, looming over grady, he ran his fingers over his neck. he felt grady’s breath beneath his touch, a little fast. grady opened his eyes and wes saw in the dying light they were heavy and dark.

wes was so tempted to ask - _marry me, run away with me._ but he thought that if he looked away, if he twitched, if he even blinked and the moment was over, that grady might disappear beneath him.

his fingers tingled with a litany of questions, the most pressing of which was _has anyone ever told you how beautiful you are?_ instead of asking, all he could do was stare, unblinking, and watch as grady finally leaned up and kissed him, his mouth wet from the river.

  
  


**16.**

there was going to be a barn raising.

wes had sat on the porch of the saloon for a month, watching as men young and old periodically carried supplies past to the far edge of town. grady told him a week before it was to happen, when they were in bed together, wes with a worn book in his hand that he borrowed from a sweet young lady named noreen who helped to mind the butcher’s.

 _barn raising next week,_ grady said, having sat up from laying sprawled across wes’s chest. _B-L-U-M-Q-U-I-S-T-S. E-D, P-E-G-G-Y. he asked for her hand right before you blew in but her aunt wants it done before she’ll let her girl go._

 _if your mother were still on this earth,_ wes said, _would she have any stipulations for marrying off her precious son?_

grady slapped him, a playful little thing. _absolutely,_ he said. _for one, she would never let me ride off into the sunset with a hired gun like you._

_she wouldn’t?_

_never,_ grady said, _she’d chase you out of the saloon with that shotgun in her fist._

they stared at each other, each a moth drawn to a flame, roles reversed on either end. grady’s playful smirk fell, and his face betrayed a bit of sorrow.

 _maybe it’s not so bad she’s not around, then,_ he said.

grady looked away from wes, and without another word he stepped out of bed and began to gather his clothes from where he’d left them on the floor.

  
  


**17.**

even with the might of every man in town, and the spare hands of capable daughters, the barn raising took all day. everyone suffered under the might of the boiling hot sun, wes included. he could feel the sweat pouring off his body, soaking into his clothes, and what kept him going was the dream of filling grady’s tub with water and settling down into it together, no matter how improbable the idea was - there was no way they would both fit, but maybe they could go down to the river again… 

the sun set, and lanterns were lit. wes noticed grady’s pianist carrying a fiddle around, and another man with a banjo, and a young lady whose father handed her a harmonica.

 _what’s this?_ he said to grady who sat beside him on a chair from old grandma turner’s inn.

 _we all worked all day,_ grady said. he was still a little short of breath, even though the barn had been standing for an hour at that point. _now, we play._

men brought their whiskey, and glasses were passed around. the band began to play, and wes watched as the couple in question, ed and peggy blumquist, were urged to dance by the other townsfolk. peggy seemed excited, tugging ed’s hand and leaning toward him like she was begging until he abated, and the townsfolk cheered. they danced a lively jig together, and they were soon joined by other couples and children, and there was even a little dog hopping from foot-to-foot, barking silently and wagging his tail.

wes turned to grady, who had a bottle of whiskey in his hand that hadn’t been there a moment ago. his cheeks were a little red, but he met wes’s eye fine. _you dance?_ wes said.

grady erupted into giggles, and wes’s heart clenched. he couldn’t believe the affection he carried for this man - he couldn’t begin to fathom it. grady’s giggles subsided quickly, and he shook his head. _no,_ he said, _i don’t._

 _you sure?_ wes said.

 _do_ you _dance?_ grady said with a pointed look.

 _no,_ wes said, _but i’d be willing to try. especially if it was you i was dancing with._

 _outlaw,_ grady said, _if you can get me to dance, i’ll marry you tomorrow._

wes, unafraid of a challenge, especially one so irresistible, hopped to his feet and grabbed grady’s hands, the whiskey bottle still in one of them, and hauled him to his feet. he swayed in place a moment, but wes kept him steady.

grady tugged his hands back, and set the bottle on the ground. _just because i’m up doesn’t mean i’m dancing,_ he said.

 _you can’t leave a deaf man to dance alone,_ wes said. _what if i embarrass myself on account of i can’t hear the music?_

 _then embarrass yourself,_ grady said.

 _mighty callous of you, sweetheart,_ wes said, with full knowledge that he’d never told grady what the sign for sweetheart meant.

 _don’t call me names i don’t understand,_ grady said.

 _dance with me,_ wes said, _and i’ll tell you what it means._

grady shrugged. _i’m not particularly bothered not knowing that one,_ he said.

it was then that wes knew he had to use the last temptation that he had. _if you don’t dance with me,_ wes said, _then i don’t think i’ll be too keen to whistle through the wheat fields. at least not for a while._

grady, his mind softened by the whiskey, looked stunned. his red cheeks seemed to get redder, and he looked, for a moment, like a fish, opening and closing his mouth. _that’s not fair,_ he said, finally.

 _not fair that you won’t dance with me,_ wes said.

grady, perhaps swayed by the half-drunk cloud his head seemed to rest on, pouted and proffered his hands. wes chuckled.

 _maybe you should lead me,_ he said. _i don’t really have an ear for music._

they danced the night away, barely doing more than shuffling their feet and twisting their bodies, at some points half-heartedly trying to imitate those dancing beside them with much more skill. often they would stumble, but wes was always there to keep the both of them steady, and grady couldn’t stop laughing or smiling. no one looked at them strangely, and there were cheers and whiskey and wes held grady as he and the townsfolk sang at the end of the night, some song they all knew that wes was oblivious to. for once, he didn’t feel lonesome in a crowd. he felt, instead, like he was part of a whole. like he belonged.

grady, mid-song, twisted and looked up at him. wes’s heart throbbed - _i love you,_ he thought, i _love you, i love you, i love you._

he looked out at the gathering, at all of the townsfolk singing together, children falling asleep where they sat. there was lou solverson’s daughter making eyes at that gangly fellow grimly. there was old grandma turner, half-dead in her chair but singing all the same. there was bill oswald, the hapless sheriff and his sweet wife.

_i love this._

  
  


**18.**

the candlelight made grady’s skin glow amber.

they were in his bed in his home above the saloon, the heavy blankets and the fine, thin sheets beneath them soaked with sweat.

if wes could whisper, he would kiss the sweat from grady’s neck and say _marry me, marry me, marry me;_ instead he pressed his his forehead against grady’s neck, already inside him but wanting to be close, close, closer than close. he felt some kind of way when grady wound his arms around his back, when he hooked his legs around his hips and held him as close as he could in turn. a gust of wind blew through the open window and nearly snuffed out the candles and chilled them as they fucked. wes pulled back and looked at grady, who looked back, smiling around heavy breaths. wes brushed the sweaty hair back from grady’s forehead and, like that, it was over.

  
  


**19.**

the ninth time wes proposed to grady preceded a great row.

grady was making them breakfast, and wes was growing antsy at the table. he stood up before long, and made his way behind grady, and he tugged his shirt out of the way and started kissing up and down his neck. grady, to his credit, seemed completely unaffected. he didn’t even flinch. he simply continued cooking, pushing the eggs around the pan.

wes nuzzled his neck, and watched over his shoulder.

grady plated the eggs before long and they sat and ate in silence, comfortable with each other.

wes finished first, and he sat watching grady. some yolk trickled through his beard, and he wiped it with a napkin. _what are you looking at?_ grady said.

 _what do you think?_ wes said. _handsomest man this side of the mississippi._

 _stop,_ grady said, grinning around his food.

 _what i wouldn’t give to make that man my husband,_ wes said. _you think he’d marry me?_

 _i don’t know if he’d wanna marry such a shameless flirt,_ grady said.

 _marry me?_ wes said.

 _no, sir,_ grady said. _i won’t._

grady returned to his food. _what would that entail, us marrying?_ he said.

 _well,_ wes said, _i’d whittle you a ring and we’d get an officiant and he’d marry us._

 _where would we go?_ grady said. _you left once, so far. i know you’ll leave again. that’s what you have to do. and i didn’t enjoy that much, you leaving. being where i don’t know where you are._

 _you saying you care about me?_ wes said. his heart felt like the sun sitting hot and bright in his chest.

grady’s brow knit. he looked appalled. _are you thinking i don’t?_ he said. _after what we’ve been doing? what we’ve done? i feel more about you than any person i’ve ever known. if i ever made you believe that i don’t care, then..._

 _no,_ wes said, _i know. i know. i promise, i know._

 _i don’t know where we would go, sweetheart,_ wes said. _i thought, maybe, you could come along with me. leave this behind._

grady stood abruptly, and turned away from the table. he stood by the sink, staring above it. wes cocked his head and wondered what was going through grady’s when grady turned and wes saw that he had tears in his eyes.

wes clamored to his feet. _what’s wrong?_ he said.

 _i don’t want to leave this behind,_ grady said. _i can’t leave this behind. this is where i belong. this is where i’m happy._

 _are you sure?_ wes said. _those kids that harassed you, those people that glare at you -_

grady yelled, and wes had no idea what he was yelling, whether it was even words, and frankly he was impressed by how frustrated grady was getting when they’d barely been at it yet. _a handful of people out of a town that’s known me since i was biting all their ankles!_ he said. _i came back from east and betsy solverson sat with my sick mother that whole time even though she was sick, too! kept her company! we didn’t have any money for a stone but mister mccarthy gave me one anyway! if these folks hated me they wouldn’t do that, wes. they know me, i know them. this is my birthright._

he knew wes couldn’t hear it, but grady stamped his foot twice and wes _felt_ it.

 _this, here. this place,_ he said. _this is where i belong. i’m in love with you, you wandering bastard, but i can’t go with you. i can’t leave this. i can’t leave her behind that fence, in the dirt. what kind of son would i be?_

they stared at each other. grady was breathing so heavy, tears wobbling in his eyes, his face all red. perhaps it was perverse for wes to think of how he was in love with him, how his spirit was a column of fire and it burned, it burned, but what a pleasure it was to burn -

wes walked out of the kitchen. he was already wearing his boots, and he paused only to grab his coat and hat from the peg by the saloon door.

  
  


**20.**

wes had left one of his saddlebags at the livery stable. the one with his whittling knife.

  
  


**21.**

wes only returned when the ring was smooth and round in his hand. he kept it in his shirt pocket, over his heart.

there was a candle in the window. wes hung his hat by the door, his coat. he took the stairs, and in the little sitting room grady stood with his back to the room, his violin under his chin, the bow in his hand riding up and down the strings. wes knew that he knew he was there, but he didn’t stop like he did before. he kept playing. for once in his life, wes ached to hear.

he finished, eventually. wes stood there in the doorway the whole long while as he played. grady untucked the violin from beneath his chin and he stood there, bow in one hand, violin in the other at his sides. wes approached, closed the distance between them, ran his hand up grady’s back and felt him ease against his palm, watched his shoulders loosen.

wes grabbed his shoulders, gentle, like he was tending a wounded bird. he turned grady around and grady let him.

grady looked up at him, his beautiful fucking eyes dark and wet and mysterious, unknowable, like all the things that made life worth living.

 _i’d rather die,_ wes said, _than tear you away from here._

grady blinked, and tears fell, and he pressed his face against wes’s chest and wrapped his arms around him, and wes wrapped his around him. the violin pressed into his back as grady squeezed him close.

  
  


**22.**

wes received another letter from moses tripoli.

 _wesley,_ it read, _i want you in arizona. not just for one job. i need eyes and steel down there. some of my travellers tell me that there are rumblings down there, that i need to be listening._

it went on that way for a page.

  
  


**23.**

the tenth time wes proposed to grady was after he sent his responding letter off to moses tripoli.

 _moses,_ it read, _you have been very good to me since we met. you have given me food, shelter, employment, a horse. sometimes i think of you and feel for you as if you were my own father. so it is with remorse that i tell you i can no longer work for you. in the time between my job before last and now i have met someone who gives me purpose where before i had none, and he lives in a town where i have found a home where before i had none, which you know intimately. he will not be moved from this town, since it is where his mother lies in the earth, and i will not be moved from him. if you feel the need to send men where i lay my head, know that i will execute them with no remorse, no matter who you send. if you come after me, i will shoot you down and bury you with a stone at your head. if you come after him, i will shoot you down and feed you to the hogs._

wes met grady at the cemetery that morning after dropping his letter at the post office with a simultaneous lightness in his chest and a worry in his stomach. grady was standing before his mother’s tombstone with his hands in his pockets, squinting against the sun.

 _alright?_ grady said when wes was by his side. wes nodded despite the knot in his stomach. grady handed him a stone and he took it.

grady took his own stone from his pocket, and he pressed it against his forehead for a moment before he set it on top of her tombstone. wes did the same. her stone was engraved _margaret levin, mother._

 _when i was little, everyone said i looked just like her,_ grady said. _said it was like we were sisters._

wes stood solemnly by him before the stone.

 _i think that i finally look like i could be her son,_ grady said, _and not her ghost._

later - much later, after the saloon had opened and closed - they sat in grady’s little sitting room on the settee, wes with his borrowed book, his head in grady’s lap with grady’s fingers brushing his hair back and stroking his beard. wes felt relaxed, calm, so unlike the way he felt delivering his letter earlier that day. every time he felt grady’s fingers in his hair anew, he felt the warm, twin sensations of love and affection.

wes had been reading the same five words over and over when he dog-eared his page and set the book on the floor. grady looked at him.

 _sweetheart,_ wes said, _will you marry me?_

grady looked down at him in his lap and he said _yes._

wes was so taken aback, he for a moment didn’t even process grady’s answer. grady grinned down at him, and suddenly, he realized what he’d said, and he was hit with a bolt of energy. he leapt off of the settee and stood there, dumb, staring at grady.

 _what?_ was all he could say.

 _yes,_ grady said again. _yes, i’ll marry you._

 _this isn’t a dream?_ wes said as he knelt before grady.

 _you’re awake,_ grady said.

_might have to pinch me._

_you don’t want me to._

wes’s smile was painful on his face. he touched grady’s hands which laid still on his lap briefly before he rummaged in his shirt pocket and pulled out the whittled ring.

 _what’s that?_ grady said.

 _now,_ wes said, _i’m gonna ask nice and proper._

he propped one of his legs up so that he was on one knee, and he set the ring on grady’s lap so that he could have his hands free.

 _grady j. levin,_ wes said, _owner and proprietor of the lonesome saloon, apple of my eye, will you marry me?_

instead of saying yes, grady leaned forward and kissed him.

  
  


**24.**

they married shortly afterward. wes was happy to call grady his fiance, but grady insisted on it happening sooner rather than later.

 _i want marital bliss,_ he said. _i want a reason to celebrate._

 _i celebrate everyday,_ wes said.

_what’re you celebrating, you smug bastard?_

_celebrate that god sent me to you._

grady was immune to his shameless flirting by that point, but he did get a little misty-eyed.

  
  


**25.**

men came.

wes shot them all down.

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> this was an undertaking! very sappy. i happened to finish this the same day i finished watching justified. westerns good.


End file.
